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{sidebar id=1}I enjoyed reading this book, "Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms", but it raised some interesting questions for me. If the act of writing a book is helplessly self indulgent, then an autobiographical story is the apotheosis of that act. Yet, in so doing, in reaching out to a hoped for and imagined audience, the author exposes themselves, they do so in the hope of some glimmer of recognition, some acceptance, some forgiveness, and some acknowledgement from their readers that it is okay; that they understand why the author did what they did.

Why should we care about Ethan Gilsdorf and his travels? Why should we care that his mother was struck down, in her prime, by a wound our online characters would shrug off with a swig of potion? Why should we care that as a man in his middle years he needs to go on a world spanning journey to understand how he survived that injury as an innocent bystander?

In Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks, by Gilsdorf, we are shown these things.

But why should we care?

We care because he is, in his own voice, telling us a tale we have lived, even if only in a small part.

Disclaimer; I am 42 this year, the same age as the author when he tells us his tale. I recognize parts of his journey, but do not share all of them.

Yet his story of exploring his childhood love of fantasy and gaming as an escape from a daunting home life touches many chords in my own life. There is a good chance it will also touch other readers who claim some affinity for fantasy, science fiction, gaming or just a desire to get away from it all for just a little bit. It also might reach those who look at the world of those same people and offer a guide to the natives of that strange land. If you have ever tried to explain why your shelves are overflowing with Harry Potter memorabilia, or why your Xbox gamerscore is over 15,000, this book might help you bridge that gap.

As a published travel journalist, Gilsdorf is technically adept in his writing and descriptive in bringing us along in his travels. He starts in his book by explaining about the life altering aneurism that changes his loving and adventurous mother into the “Momster,” a creature to be avoided or endured by a young man all too suddenly weighted with adult responsibilities by a mother with many disabilities.

One of the ways he coped with this was by creating fantasy worlds using D&D. He, and others boys his age, escaped into papers, dice and maps painstakingly drawn on graph paper into other realms and other worlds. In those worlds his control of his characters and his friends’ characters, their actions, fates, and even the fates of millions of imaginary people would allow an adolescent boy to conquer things he could barely understand in real life.

Moving beyond those “childish” games, which he abandoned in college, he becomes a journalist.

Yet in later years, after the “Momster” had passed on and in the midst of a relationship challenge, does he go back and visit the young man he once was and his D&D.

Like any good travel journalist Gilsdorf takes us along for the ride. He shares some of the sights, smells, tastes and views he gets to enjoy (lucky bastard) while weaving in the history or relevance his story of those same sensorial experiences.

Unlike your typical travel journalism, he has a goal other than boosting tourism or enjoying a “comped” junket in his reported jaunts. He wants to revisit his youth, understand his present self and try to determine what future he might have as a reformed (lapsed?) gamer.

His internal and external journey takes him from JRR Tolkien’s Oxford to E. Gary Gygax’s Lake Geneva to Peter Jackson’s New Zealand. Personally, I wanted to learn more about how he managed to wrangle this feat of traveling around the world on a freelance journalist’s pay. He manages in the course of the book to explore a number of Fantasy and Gaming touchstones. The aforementioned Oxford, Lake Geneva and New Zealand, as well as Northwest Pennsylvania, Boston, and the virtual realm of Azeroth are all visited in his journey of self (re) discovery.

Of particular interest to the readers of this website is the interview with Nissa Ludwig, a gamer afflicted with Multiple Sclerosis and AbleGamers Foundation board member. Her journey into virtual fantasy realms, as chronicled by Gilsdorf, represents an escape from her physical limitations in reality. Gilsdorf handles this well, covering what virtual worlds mean to her, and how they empower and liberate her.

If you like games or gaming, in any form, this book is a well crafted journey into both the why and the how of a fantasy life, above the mundane.